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Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Dominion Exhibition mini set
« on: January 21, 2019, 02:37:09 pm »#11 Dual type
Agent ($4 Action-Victory)
+2 Cards
Move the token on the Agent mat to the next square if possible.
At the end of the game, this is worth the number of points indicated on the square with the Agent token.
Setup: each player puts an Agent token on the first square of their Agent mat.
Extra information: the Agent mat has 16 squares on it with the following labels: 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5.
#12 Non-terminal drawer
Home Laboratory ($4 Action)
+1 Action
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal 2 cards costing at most $4. Put these into your hand and discard the other revealed cards.
#13 One Shot
Chaplain ($3 Action)
Return this to the Chaplain pile. Trash any number of cards from your hand.
When you buy this, you may trash any number of cards from your hand.
#14 Self synergising
Study ($3 Action)
+1 Card
+1 Action
Reveal your hand. +1 Card for every Study in your hand.
#15 $2
Night Shift ($2 Action)
+1 Card
+1 Action
Gain a coin token.
All cards cost $1 more this turn (before any cost reductions).
More thoughts.
Off the top of my head these 5 cards are all very solid. Nitpicks will abound below.
Agent is good, test for balance of course, but the idea is very sound. It's maybe a bit too powerful with King's Courts and the like, though; I wonder if it should cap at 4VP instead of 5VP; 4VP for a $4 victory is already great. But, there's a risk involved in buying something for $4 that might end up being only 1VP, plus you need to buy this early and use it if it's going to be any reward at all, so you're giving up buying and using other cards; so perhaps the huge payoff is worth the significant strategic risk.
Home Laboratory is a good design as written. It might even be a bit weak; I could see it as a $3 card (compare it to Seer, which is a $5 but can't pick up $0-1 cost junk).
Chaplain is good, a 2-use Chapel of sorts. I think it might need to cost a bit more, though, as it might be too convenient to purchase in early game. I guess the question becomes how powerful the boost is when you buy it turn 1 or 2 to removes some Estates and coppers. As usual, testing will tell.
Study.... Study might need to cost less. The reason is that Study is basically a no-card if it is the only Study in your hand. It's also a no-card if it's the last Study you play this turn. So basically:
5 card hand, 1 study: study is worthless ($0-1 value)
5 card hand, 2 studies: study draws 2 cards (laboratory! $5 value) but if it doesn't draw another study, then the 2nd study is worthless.
5 card hand, 3 studies: study draws 3 cards (OP!!!) and then probably spirals out of control if you have more studies!!!
I find that the projected power of study, then, is based on the number of studies you can have in your deck vs the size of your deck. A 15-card deck with 5 studies in it is probably obscenely good, but otherwise it's maybe underpowered? There's also a problem of player count; if everyone goes for the dream of endless Studies, then the more players there are, the worse it is. That said, I think the downside of Studies being bad if you don't have many will offset them nicely in a 4-player game. So just food for thought: may be more powerful in 2-player than in 4.
Night Shift: As I understand it, this basically takes $1 from this turn and saves it for later, by making cards cost more. In some ways, it'd be better balanced if it simply was "+1 Card, +1 Action, when you discard this from play, +1 Coffer". At the same time, if you have, say, Butcher, then trashing a card to get its cost in Coffers, this would be great. Except that's really the only scenario in which it's all that great; I supposed you could also make certain other cards with price bands behave differently, but not enough for it to matter and usually you don't want cards that normally cost 0 to start costing 2 or 3. So, unless I'm missing something (which is pretty likely) I would price this card at $0 or $1 as written; if you used my suggestion, I'd probably still cost it at $1 or $2; see Ducat for instance (for counterexample, see Baker).
Anyhow, those are my thoughts! I'll try get to the last 3 soon!